The picture above is a depiction of what modern day Omana Penkutti’s look like. Naturally, there was only so much googling that could be done and I eventually had to go to Kerala to see it for myself. Eventually I decided to just take Abs word for it that they are indeed hot chiqitas that are beautiful beyond what is fathomable by simpletons such as myself.
Disappointed; I decided to complete a nobler cause, one some consider easier than spotting Penkuttis, but challenging.
I’ve had a vow of revisiting Sabrimalai after completing Med School and I finally got the opportunity to go. A quick flight to Chennai and an immediate 700+ km drive to Kerala later became more of a soul cleansing endeavor.
Before you’re allowed to go to Sabrimalai, you need to put on something known as “Malai”. Theoretically it is a necklace of beads, however the significance of it is pretty profound. First, it indicates that this person is currently fasting, in preperations to go to Sabrimalai. Secondly, the wearer, is not allowed to have an ounce of impure thoughts throughout the duration. It is said that the climb up the mountain is challenging, the climb up the mountain having been a bad boy is tremendously difficult. The climb up the mountain having the dirty mind of HypoGXII is close to impossible. The only thing to do is repent!
My Uncle, the man known to possess much swagger, is a guru swamy, an expert in layman terms, someone who has completed the pilgrimage 18 times or more if my memory serves me right. Since you’re not allowed to put the Malai on yourself, his assistance was required.
The next part is the tying of what is called the “Irumudi”. Basically what happens is, they take a coconut, make a hole to drain out the liquid inside. Then, whilst conducting a pooja, you will pour liquid ghee into it, and it will be sealed with a cork. Afterwards, you place the coconut into a sack, and fill the sack up with rice and donations that will be placed in one of the several donation boxes in the temple. Generally what happens is that close friends and relatives will pour rice and place donations into the sack. The idea is they will make their prayers and wishes, and you are to carry their burden up to the temple, and when you donate everything you bring to the temple, you’re couriering their prayers together with you.
However, since I am loved by many, or rather perhaps disliked, I carried four coconuts, placed in three sacks. All sacks were filled up with rice and some donations. This made my sack really heavy, and I was wondering how my journey up will be.
At this point I’ve gotten tired of putting up pictures of people putting in the rice. I’m sure you’ve got the idea. Okay, one last one;
Once everyone is done, it’s time to place the irimudhi on your head, as you will carry this up to the temple.
I know what you’re thinking, yes the fan isn’t switched on, it was pretty hot. Yes, that’s a lot of flowers too. It was kind of prickly as well and was less than comfortable.
With everything in the temple done, we began the drive to Sabrimalai. It was a 700+ km journey, and we left at 1 p.m. It was a non-stop drive, except the small stops we made at various temples on the way to the temple. My lovely aunts were generous enough to make us plenty of chapati and itali that served as lunch, dinner and breakfast throughout the journey. The itali finished faster than the speed of light, but the chapati lasted till the journey back!
Driving in india is all kinds of fun. First, there is the horrible state the city roads are. Potholes everywhere, people crossing the roads as if they are blind, and the constant usage of the car horn, honking like a madman to make a 100m drive. The best part of india is that there are cows on the road crossing at any time they damn well please. They are fondly called as “Break Inspectors” as they force you to use your breaks immediately when they cross!
That aside, I’ve noticed that over the years, India’s highway has become extremely good. Apparently, the job is outsourced to Malaysian contractors. It shows, because the highway shares plenty of similarities. However, the Indian government also learned one bad habit together with how to make the roads. They introduced toll booths.
Anyways, we drove into the night and finally reached Sabrimalai at around 3 a.m. Let me just say that using Indian toilets are an amazing feat by themselves, especially the public ones. My Gastrointestinal tract isn’t exactly my friend, so lets just say I had several adventures on the drive over having to use public toilets. Infact once we reached the Pumba, the first thing I did was pay 5 rupees to use a public toilet! If you’ve been to Sabrimalai, you will know what toilet I am speaking about and GOD HELP ME if I ever have to use some place like that ever again!
So, we’re at the Pumba, which is basically the river that flows from the mountain. The water was refreshing, and it was clean, probably because it was still very early, and many devotees have yet to reach the temple. You’re supposed to cleanse yourself prior to the climb up, so, it’s down to your tighty whities and take a dip. Several dips. In extremely cold water. At 3 in the morning.
Once you’re clean, and done drying yourself, the journey begins. You start the climb up the Malai.
The climb at times is really really steep, and they’ve placed a handle alongst the way you can use to assist. Real men don’t use it.
Some parts of the climb was almost at a 50-60 degree angle, and was quite a challenge to climb. You’ll just have to persevere.
The entire journey isn’t exactly a climb. Once you’re almost near the temple, the road offers some mercy. It’s a short stretch of flat terrain before you are to climb more stairs.
Unfortunately, it’s forbidden to take any pictures inside the temple, so here’s a picture of something really really awesome to compensate.
Yep, that’s me in an Audi RS 5 2011. Don’t be jealous though, it’s not mine, it’s just a showroom 
You must admit, the car makes me look good. However, the car costs less than HALF of what it costs in Malaysia. FML. Come on la, stop protecting PROTON and Perodua and remove import duties la. It’s a bit sad that I can get an R8 in India for half a million and I have to pay 1.2 million for it in Malaysia. Either make PROTON and Perodua compete with the other markets, or scrap them altogether for all I care. Anyways, 5 years ago, every other car was a PROTON, today, every other car is an import. Even with so much tax levied, people are still opting for the better option. Clearly protecting them isn’t working, so stop making the Rakyat pay so much money!
I digress, back to Sabrimalai! So once you’re in the temple, you smash one coconut open at the Puliyar temple. Then you climb the sacred 18 stairs made of pure gold. At the top, you join a huge queue waiting to see Lord Ayapa himself. The concentration of the crowd indicates how much time you’ll be able to see and pray in front of Ayapa. There was easily more people than the Bersih rally there, and this wasn’t even the Peak season, so try imagining how the situation would be when the crowd was in full swing.
You crack all the coconuts you have brought with you, take the ghee out of it, which has somewhat solidified, and give it to the iyer to do neyi abishegem for Ayapa. The rice and money, will be donated in the appropriate collection sections.
After all this is done, you can exit the temple and make your descent. The climb up which is supposed to be the hard part, took slightly more than an hour. I was impressed, as I thought it would have taken much longer, but I suppose since the crowd wasn’t too large, it was possible to move faster.
The distance between the Pumba and the top of the temple is estimated by my Uncle to be around 10 miles, and it feels about right. Once we left the temple, it was time for the descent downhill. This is supposed to be the easy part, or so I thought. Unbeknownst to me, my Uncle had other sinister ideas.
Us, feeling all accomplished and stuff!
On the way down you can see several devotees who are older, and children who have difficulty making the climb on their own. There are assistance which you can hire, it’s called a “Dolli”
These chaps will take you from the Pumba all the way to the temple entrance. They are pretty fit, and I would not like to be in the receiving end of their punches.
You know Indians, if they are known for one thing, it’s their ability to start a business almost anywhere. In Kerala, it is no different. You could be in the middle of the jungle, on top of a mountain somewhere and they’ll still manage to take your money. As we started really early, we didn’t manage to eat anything, and naturally we were hungry. Luckily for us, there was a shop selling Vadai!
5 for 20 Indian Rupees, so we bought close to 25 of those for the three of us. It finished within 10 to 15 minutes, however, I must say it was very tasty.
So, anyways as I mentioned earlier, about my Mama making the journey down the mountain an unforgettable experience. We could have easily taken the same route we took up the mountain back down. However, when we reached a fork, my Mama said, hey, this is a shortcut, and it will go directly down the mountain, avoiding human traffic and the blazing sun. Oh hey, it makes sense, plus he’s been here many times and knows the terrain, so lets give it a go.
Biggest Mistake Ever.
Robert Frost would have been proud because we took the road less travelled.
If you want to call it a road that is. The path was horrible, with nothing but mud, sand and sharp rocks. It wasn’t pleasant, I’ll give you that much. We marched down the seemingly unending part. Everytime we asked anyone passing by how far the distance to the pumba is, all we get is a, ito, inthevalithan, unnom konjum. {This is the way, just a little bit more}. This went on for a good or more 5 k.m. and we completely stopped asking people.
It hurts like hell! Indeed Kallum Mannum Kalluke Metthai.
The terrain looks strangely familiar. There is an elevated path in the middle, and depressed sections on the side…looks a lot like tyre tracks.. Fair enough, this is the route that tractors use to climb up the mountain carrying supplies. A trunk road/supply road if you’ll have it. We had to climb up the hill on the sides of the pathway everytime a tractor came. Unfortunately, as we were going down, at least 4 tractors decided they were to ferry goods up.
Indian Mat Rempits
The journey continues, even more terrain with rocks, rocks and even more rocks.
We finally reached the base, the Pumba after at least 2 hours of walking. We were hungry and exhausted. Luckily for us, at the bottom, there were people giving anadhanam of sambar rice. Even for me, it was heavenly. It was akin to a reward for completing the journey!
The journey was in essence fun and memorable. It however, isn’t for chaps with pedicured feet. For this may be how your feet ends up at the end of your journey.
Till next time kids, enjoy!
Sammi Sarenem.
Here is a related video that depicts the journey, minus the dancing.
